Sky and Bellan walked for a bit longer, but soon made their way to a massive auditorium. A thick line of people were pouring in each of the entrances, their advance regulated by older uniformed students with log books.
“Name?” One of the older students asked, not bothering to look up from the book.
“Sky Frederiksen.”
“Frederiksen, Frederiksen… Ah here,” said the boy pointing towards Sky’s name in the booklet. “You’re in the front row… WAIT.”
The older student looked up and met eyes with Sky’s brother. He faked a laugh and pulled out on his collar for a moment.
Sky tilted her head in confusion, uncertain why the attendance taking student was freaking out. She didn’t really care, though, and grabbed her brother by the arm and started dragging him into the auditorium, away from the strange staring match that had been taking place.
“Do you know him?” Sky asked her brother as they walked down the long sloping aisle.
“Yes.” — A curt reply.
“Okaaaaaay,” Sky trailed off, noticing that her brother clearly didn’t want to talk about it. The pair found their seats. Their mother was waiting for them there, waving her hand.
Sky sat down and leaned into her seat, noting that it was made with 10 year spirit wood—A nice luxury. The seat to her left was empty at the moment, but soon a familiar face filled it.
“Talen!” Sky exclaimed, smiling like a child as he best friend in all the world sat next to her.
Talen Capilli cut an interesting figure. She looked more like a man than a woman, with her rugged features and flat chest. Her face angled downward and looked like it belonged on a bird of prey, not a human. She had short spiked auburn hair and a crooked grin.
“Sky, you idiot,” said Talen, her voice crackling like an old record. “Why didn’t you tell me about Ryan proposing to you!”
“Ah,” Sky’s eyes went wide as she realized she never did send a message to Talen about that.
“You forgot. I can see it in your eyes.”
Sky gave a sheepish smile and shrugged. “Sorry,” she replied.
“I’ve heard you said no. That you snapped back with pretty harsh words too,” said Talen, her chin in the air and eyes curling like a hawk’s beak.
“Yeah. I might have been a bit callous…”
The corners of Talen’s mouth lifted, “No, I think you did just fine.”
“Huh?”
“Ryan needed to get his arrogant ass slapped down. He needed to know his place.”
“His place?” Sky asked, confused.
“Third place, to be exact. First is you. Second is me. He can only be third,” said Talen as she faced forward, only looking over towards Sky with the corner of her right eye.
“I don’t get it. Is this a ranking of strength? Because last I checked Ryan beat you about a week ago in a fight…”
Talen’s head snapped sideways and she huffed, “First of all, I was tired that day. My dad made me do the Spirit Mountain Climb earlier. Second of all, he got really lucky. I’m definitely stronger than him…”
…
“But no. I’m not ranking strength. I’m ranking in relationship-ship power,” she finished.
“Relationship-ship what?” Sky asked.
“In all the city, us three are the three youngest and most sought after marriage partners. Now that we’re 13, our parents and family are going to start pressuring us…” Talen’s voice seemed to fade off there. She looked Sky in the eyes.
“Sky, we should just marry each other and elop…”
“It’s starting, Talen!” Sky interrupted, not hearing her friends proposal at all as she focused on the stage where numerous strong people gathered. One of them was the teacher Yan who Sky talked with earlier. All four of the strong presences were there. Sky could feel a few of them staring at her. She gave them a goofy grin in return.
“You got shut down, Talen,” came a male voice from the row behind. Sky didn’t really hear it. She was too focused on keeping her fake status up in case anyone on the stage had stronger appraisal magic. Just as she doubled down on her fake status another appraisal magic did indeed scan her.
‘I am such a genius,’ thought Sky.
“Shut up, Ryan. You fared no better,” Talen hissed off to the side.
-
An old man with a long beard walked up to the podium in the middle of the stage. He cleared his voice.
“Hello new students and their families, I am Headmaster Senn…”
Sky listened but was a bit bored by the speech. She paid attention to the rules, in particular. She noted down anything important such as grading systems. Students were ranked in this school with Contribution Points. Each year had separate rankings, but there was also a universal all-time ranking board too, to foster the spirit of competition with past generations. Points were earned from successful completion of classwork, high performances on tests, outstanding feats, cultivation breakthroughs, tournament victories, and basically any other thing under the sun that could be a form of competition. New students would start with points equal to their cultivation rank in the body refining rungs. That meant Sky would start out with 7 points.
The point ranking couldn’t really earn anything other than recognition or fame, but Sky didn’t mind. Reputation and fame was all she really wanted out of her school years, after all. She had a future planned, and in order to achieve it she would need to reign in as the top student of not only her year, but of all time. She would be at this school for 5 years, but she was certain she could break the records by her 3rd or 4th without giving up her secrets. She could easily break records her freshman year if she just outright revealed her real abilities…
The headmaster moved on to basic rules of the academy. Conflict was allowed, but if injuries cropped up everyone involved would get in trouble and could potentially lose points. There was an official dueling platform, but people had to be within 2 cultivation realms to fight there. Injuries were not investigated on the platform, but the participants were expected to pull back if the duel looked like it might end lethally. While killing was allowed on the official dueling platform, it was heavily frowned upon and most teachers would refuse a known murderer from their classes.
Classes themselves were interesting too. Each teacher would give lectures and lessons to a certain number of students. They would take in only so many student disciples for specific subjects, often giving those with more points priority for their lessons. So teacher ‘A’ might only be willing to teach 30 students the basics of swordsmanship, but if 50 students try to sign up the 20 with the lowest points wouldn’t be able to get in. If you had low points you had to study under worse teachers, and if you studied under worse teachers it’d be hard to earn more points. It was a vicious system for the untalented.
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Every student was assigned ‘homeroom’ teachers, as well, who doubled down as guidance counselors of a sort. They’d give suggestions and help students plan out their paths.
With the basic introductions over, the headmaster backed up and the other teachers on the stage started to spread out to their own personal stations. Students were expected to find and sign up for classes on their on at this point… Well, most were.
Mistress Yan walked up to Sky with a smile.
“Young Frederiksen,” called Mistress Yan, drawing looks from numerous people in the building. “We’ve already signed you up for your classes at the behest of your family.”
Sky looked up and grinned. She knew full well she was getting special treatment here, and it felt great. Sky was never one to look down on being treated better due to status, money, or personal strength.
Mistress Yan handed Sky a schedule, “You can find any electives or other classes you might want to join, so long as they don’t conflict with the times we have you down here. The Headmaster has taken a liking to you, girl, and decided he’d be teaching you swordsmanship himself.”
-
Orientation for Sky proved to be almost a waste of time. She did manage to find a few clubs and electives she found interesting, but most conflicted with the schedule the academy higher-ups made for her. This frustrated her a bit. Several of the electives actually looked interesting. While Sky was, perhaps, the strongest person in the world, there were plenty of things she didn’t know that could prove useful. Wilderness Survival, for example, was one elective that caught her eye.
A few of the more mundane ones showed up too, like literature club type things and theater… Oddly, Sky felt more attracted to those two than anything else. She never had much interest in theater or books in her past life, but that was because Video Games filled every void. In this world there were far less… Interactive things to do. Books were a great company for a rainy evening alone when adventures couldn’t be had.
With those thoughts in mind, Sky picked out those electives on a whim more than anything. Immediately after she did so a veritable landslide of other first year students signed up for them as well, just to be in the same class as the ‘Frederiksen Clan Princess’.
School was going to be quite an interesting time.
-
As the general assembly started to wind down a sudden wind lifted up, blowing papers and unfastened hats into the air. Overhead an airship crossed the horizon and landed on the green just outside the auditorium. The noise of its engines disrupted the entire event.
From the airship Sky could feel the aura of two cultivators who were on the same level as the old Grento bastard among a bunch of smaller auras. There was also one strong one, about the same level as the Headmaster and Yan.
The side of the airship came into view and Sky recognized the insignia on it. It belonged to the Empire’s Royal Family… Why was a royal airship crashing the Altruce Academy’s orientation? That question was quickly answered as a middle-aged man walked off the ship with a young boy in tow. The kid looked to be about Sky’s own age so she looked up his stats.
Name: Obern Sada
Age: 13
Gender: Male
Cultivation: Body Refining (6)
Cultivation Technique: Royal Lion Dual-Cultivation Qigong Method (High Tier)
-
Strength: 10
Speed: 6
Accuracy: 6
Stamina: 9
Spiritual Will: 10
Spiritual Sense 9
-
Classes (lvl): Qigong Fighter (1), Martial Artist (2)
Sada was the surname of the current emperor. Obern was the name of the Emperor’s fifth son. Sky heard rumors about that name recently, bad rumors. Treating injuries as a ‘saint’ left her privy to the knowledge the lower class has, and that was invaluable at this moment.
Sky immediately positioned herself to stand behind her brother and Talen. Ryan happened to be in front of her too but that didn’t matter. Obern was, for all intents and purposes, not someone she wanted to be near. While she could kill him with a flick she really didn’t want to expose herself over this.
Obern was known to be forceful with women who caught his fancy, which happened to be literally any girl that had talent. His cultivation method too further reinforced just how shitty of a person he was. Sky analyzed it and the details made her want to puke.
The Royal Lion method required intimate bodily contact with the opposite sex, and it drained the cultivation of the unfortunate partner at the same time. In exchange for such stringent requirements, it gave the user incredible prowess in their own cultivation stage and enhanced their physical body’s strength.
Which explained why his strength stat was even higher than Sky’s cousin despite being two whole cultivation ranks lower.
“Prime Minister Maurel, what brings you and the young prince here to Altruce?” The headmaster said as he stepped forward and met the eyes of the middle-aged man. The ‘Prime Minister’ smiled.
“His majesty Prince Obern has heard great things about your Academy and, wanting to have some distance from his brothers and sisters, asked me to transfer him here,” replied the sleazy-looking Prime Minister.
As the greasy man said those words, Sky felt his eyes look directly at her. Immediately Sky’s oracle class went into high gear and a small fire lit in the pit of her stomach. She was really getting sick of being scanned and analyzed today. Really really sick of it.
“And, it seems, he’ll have some tremendous competition here. Far more than he would back home in the same year,” the Prime Minister said, licking his lips like a freak.
“Where is she?” The young prince asked. “I heard she’s quite the beauty.”
“Who are you referring to?” The Headmaster asked.
“The Princess of the Frederiksen Clan, duhh,” the prince replied, rolling his eyes. “Father sent me here with his blessing, saying I can take her as mine.”
“Now Prince, that is not what His Majesty said,” interjected the Prime Minister.
The Prince rolled his eyes again and sneered.
“He might as well have. He said I am free to court her. Now, where is she? I demand her to be brought before me.”
-
Sky’s fists were shaking. Her eyes narrowed and a terrible thought came to her mind. She was about to take action when a hand grabbed hold of her shoulder. Sky looked up to see her mom looking at her with a gentle smile… Though her mother’s smile didn’t hide the absolutely overwhelming killing intent radiating out.
“Young Prince, as the headmaster of this academy I would like to ask you to stop making a scene. If you wish to sign up for classes during this orientation ceremony feel free, but I wont have you making demands of my students. While in this school, everyone’s status is directly related to their Academic Points Total.”
Sky smiled hearing the headmaster defend her… Though he did it in a rather roundabout way. He should have just slapped the arrogant bastard.
“Tch,” spit the Prince. “Fine. Maurey, sign me up for the same classes that girl is in. I’ll just see her then. I’m going back to bed.”
With that said, the Prince walked back onto the ship and slammed the interior door behind him, disappearing from sight.
A flash of anger crossed the Prime Minister’s eyes before he looked back over and smiled at Sky.
“Headmaster, can I trouble you to help me,” the Prime Minister asked.
“Of course, come, why don’t I escort you to my office.”
-
The auditorium emptied out as everyone finished signing up for their classes. Sky followed her brother and mom, her hands still shaking in anger at the audacity of that royal bastard. Did she not show enough talent? Was 7 rungs in 3 years not enough to make the nobility back off of her and leave her alone? In her rage, Sky’s aura increased explosively. Her seventh rung cultivation moved and smashed through the ‘bottleneck’. All at once she reached the eighth rung, and her aura settled down.
All around her eyes were looking over, now. Teachers, including Yan and her high level posse, were staring slack jawed.
“Sky did you just…” Talen started to ask as she ran up.
“Yes.” Sky replied, her voice curt but laced with anger.
Suddenly a pair of arms wrapped around Sky. Sky turned and hugged her mother back.
“That’s my little pumpkin. You really are our brightest star. Dad will be so happy to see how hard you’ve been working. Let’s go home~”
“Thanks, Mom… Do you think I could get away with breaking that Prince in half when he tests my patience?”
“Of course dear. In fact, your mother was planning on dealing with this herself…”
Sky’s mom grinned and a dangerous look crossed her eyes. A tremendous killing intent surged along with her cultivation. Her aura rose and a peal of thunder cracked in the sky.
Like mother like daughter. A beam of spirit energy crossed the heavens and the older woman transcended the Golden Core stage in the middle of a crowd while hugging her daughter. Some would call this foolish, since anyone could interfere and hamper her breakthrough, but on this campus there was only one person who both could (and would) dare to. Though, if he tried, Sky would have smote him like an angry God.
The crowds were wrong. Those who said the word ‘Crazy’ just didn’t understand. Perhaps, in all the world, hugging Sky was the safest possible place to be during a breakthrough.
On this day, the strongest cultivator in the Frederiksen house was made public. Sky’s mother crossed into the Cracked Core stage with ease under the gentle nourishment of her daughter’s love.